Striking the right balance

Date: 30/01/1997

AN OUTBURST of resentment in the Netherlands last week over what many Dutch people saw as a deliberate attempt to steal their country's EU limelight drew attention to one of the key issues facing the Intergovernmental Conference which has so far been largely ignored by those outside the negotiating chamber.

The relationship between the Union's large member states and their smaller neighbours has long been a contentious issue, with the former determined to ensure that governments representing a minority of the EU's population cannot override the wishes of its biggest members and the latter equally determined to preserve their influence in shaping the Union's destiny.

In fact, the decision by French and German Foreign Ministers Hervé de Charette and Klaus Kinkel to stage a joint press conference during a routine meeting with their EU counterparts in Brussels said far more about the depth of the cracks in their relationship than it did about their attitude towards their Union partners.

But it is a testimony to the sensitivity of the smaller member states and their fears of domination by the Union's 'big five' that the gesture was given such a hostile reception in the Netherlands - despite Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo's insistence that he “loved the idea” of the French and Germans playing the role of EU “engine”.

EU leaders should take note. If they had any doubts about the difficulties they will face in agreeing on reforms to the Union's internal procedures, they must surely now recognise that it will be an uphill struggle.

This does not mean that the Intergovernmental Conference should shy away from tackling key issues such as how many Commissioners there should be in an expanded Union, how many votes each country should have in the Council of Ministers, how to ensure a fair allocation of seats in a 700-member European Parliament and whether the current system of rotating EU presidencies can continue.

The answers to such questions are crucial to the smooth working of the EU once it expands to take in up to a dozen new members.

But it does mean that the debate will have to be approached with extreme care.

Nothing would be more damaging to the Union's future - especially at a time when the advent of economic and monetary union will, at least to begin with, inevitably split the EU into an inner and outer group - than to leave some countries with the feeling, to borrow a phrase from the British author George Orwell, that while all member states are equal, some are more equal than others.